The TV Watch: Old Guard Keeps Grip on Celebration

Old Guard Keeps Grip on Celebration

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Michael Douglas, best actor winner for the HBO movie “Behind the Candelabra.”

Despite all the fear and anxiety, Netflix didn’t steal the night in the end. “Modern Family” on ABC won the Emmy Award for best comedy, which was almost a surprise because it has won so many times before and because other shows, like “Veep” of HBO, have gained ground. “Breaking Bad,” on the other hand, is about to end its run, so it was almost inevitable that that AMC hit would get yet another standing ovation.

Many other wins were unexpected, and some were well-deservedâ€" like Jeff Daniels, who won the best drama actor award for “The Newsroom” on HBO, and Merritt Wever, of “Nurse Jackie” on Showtime, who won the award for best supporting actress in a comedy. Ms. Wever proved she deserved her statuette, giving the shortest and best acceptance speech. She thanked the academy, then said, “I gotta go, bye,” and walked offstage.

If it’s a new and golden age of television, as so many presenters insisted, you couldn’t tell from the host, Neil Patrick Harris, who treated the Emmys like the Tonys and made self-conscious jokes about the precariousness and even irrelevance of classic television in the era of on-demand premium cable and Internet streaming. Mr. Harris said that the awards show would celebrate the best of television, then added, “For our younger audience, that’s the thing you watch on your phones.”

In a night was could have celebrated the many exciting innovations in the field, the Emmy producers chose to look backward, not only with tributes to dead actors but also with mournful references to a more glorious time in broadcast television, particularly on CBS, which presented the event. The network put its chief executive, Leslie Moonves, in a coy cameo in the opening skit, and it stretched a link between the anniversary of CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite’s coverage of the Kennedy assassination and the Beatles’ first performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on CBS, so that Carrie Underwood could sing “Yesterday.”

CBS executives seem so worried about their own mortality that they’re celebrating their own mortality.

Insecurity may also be the reason the show kept veering off into song-and-dance routines that have no bearing on the Emmys. Mr. Harris, a perennial awards show host, was mocked in a fake ad in which his “How I Met Your Mother” co-stars warned about the risks of Excessive Hosting Disorder. But it was the show itself that needed an intervention, shifting from Emmy awards to musical numbers better suited to the Tonys and the Grammys: Awards Show Identity Disorder. Mr. Harris did two song-and-dance numbers, including one that paid tribute to “Mad Men” with a tune from “Guys and Dolls.” The other made fun of its own irrelevance to the moment at hand: “It’s the number in the middle of the show.”

That was a lot of time wasted on a night when there were so many deaths to acknowledge, including those of Cory Monteith of “Glee” and James Gandolfini, once of “The Sopranos.”

Even stars who didn’t die this past year got a shout-out. Michael Douglas’s best actor award for a mini-series was one of three that “Behind the Candelabra,” an HBO biopic of Liberace, won. (Mr. Douglas thanked his co-star, Matt Damon, who played his younger lover, and said he would split the statuette with him, saying roguishly, “Do you want the bottom or the top?”)

With that many awards, it wasn’t clear why Elton John needed to sing a solemn song from his new album that had nothing to do with that legendary Vegas showman, But it certainly wasn’t much of an homage to play on an unadorned piano and no candelabra in the wind.

Fashion, always a side benefit of an awards show, wasn’t much more innovative or exciting. There is so much change in the industry and so little experimentation in wardrobe choices: year after year, actresses, or rather their stylists, select tasteful, risk-free monochromatic, strapless gowns by Valentino or Prada or Zac Posen. Hollywood is still so haunted by the over-the-top fashion faux-pas of Cher or Björk that even comedy stars abide by the sartorial equivalent of the Hippocratic oath: first do no fashion harm. And that made Lena Dunham’s choice of a bold, full-skirted green ball gown covered with giant red roses, seem even more shocking than her near-nudity famous on “Girls.”

The real winner of the night may have cynicism and public distrust of government.

Seven or eight days away from a possible government shutdown, some of the winners, like “Veep,” “Homeland” and even “Political Animals,” reflect television’s repulsed but riveted relationship with Washington. The federal government may be a swamp, but it’s a swamp viewers love to splash in. Compared with the waste and gridlock on Sunday’s Emmy awards show, Washington may be a lot more functional.

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Old Guard Keeps Grip on Celebration.

Honors for ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Modern Family’

LOS ANGELES â€" On Sunday, a mere seven days before its very last episode, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” finally earned the outstanding drama Emmy award that it had been denied for years.

As Bryan Cranston, who plays Walter White, the show’s lead character, applauded behind him onstage, the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, said he “did not see this coming.” Mr. Gilligan rattled off the names of the other nominees, including “Mad Men,” the AMC sibling that beat “Breaking Bad” in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and “Homeland,” the Showtime series that beat both of them last year, making sure to mention every competitor. “I thought this was going to be ‘House of Cards,’” he admitted, mentioning the Netflix series that has been credited with ushering in a new age of online television.

But no, it was not Netflix’s night. It was Mr. Gilligan’s, whose show made its debut in 2008 and had been nominated for the top drama prize three times since, but had never won. Mr. Gilligan did not mention the impending finale next Sunday, but he did not have to â€" the award was a free advertisement before an anticipated audience of at least 10 million viewers.

"I’m just so happy for Vince," AMC’s president, Charlie Collier, said as he exited the Nokia Theater.

Until Mr. Gilligan’s acceptance speech at the very end of the Emmys on Sunday, it looked as if “Breaking Bad” might come away almost empty-handed. There were audible gasps of “Whoa!” and “What?” in the auditorium here as Jeff Daniels of HBO’s “The Newsroom” won the annual outstanding actor in a drama award, besting Mr. Cranson, who had won three times before and was widely expected to win again. Mr. Daniels sounded as surprised as anyone when he accepted the award; he had not expected to win.

Neither had Bobby Cannavale, of HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire;” in fact he had not even written an acceptance speech. But he beat two “Breaking Bad” actors, Aaron Paul and Jonathan Banks, in the supporting actor category. “I can’t believe I get to get mentioned with these other really incredible actors,” Mr. Cannavale said.

But “Breaking Bad” did pick up one acting award, for Anna Gunn, who plays Walter White’s wife, Skyler, and was recognized as best supporting actress. (“Bryan Cranston just told me to breathe,” she said as she came on stage.)

To the surprise of many Emmy observers, the two stars of “House of Cards,” Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, came away without awards. The filmmaker David Fincher, who directed the first episode of “Cards,” won an Emmy for best directing, but he was not there to accept it. (A Netflix spokesman said he was filming “Gone Girl.”)

But the wins for “Breaking Bad” might be seen indirectly as wins for Netflix, too: five prior seasons of the AMC series are available on the streaming service. Minutes after “Bad” won the best drama award, the widely followed Netflix Twitter account congratulated the show â€" “All hail (this year’s) king” â€" and reminded subscribers that they could catch up online.

Earlier in the evening, Showtime’s “Homeland,” which last year took home the Emmy for outstanding drama and was nominated again this year, won two awards, one for the actress Claire Danes and another for Henry Bromell, a writer on the series who died of a heart attack in March. Mr. Bromell’s widow, Sarah, accepted his award. Ms. Danes, accepting her award later, paused to acknowledge Mr. Bromell. “We think of him every day as we continue to work on the show that he helped define,” she said.

It was a night of upsets â€" with all-too-numerous remembrances of stars who had passed away in the past year â€" from the very first award, when Merritt Wever won for her supporting actress performance on Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie,” beating three-time winner Julie Bowen of “Modern Family” as well as Ms. Bowen’s co-star Sofia Vergara.

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Honors for ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Modern Family’ . \n \n\n'; } s += '\n\n\n'; document.write(s); return; } google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '3'; google_ad_client = 'nytimes_blogs'; google_safe = 'high'; google_targeting = 'site_content'; google_hints = nyt_google_hints; google_ad_channel = nyt_google_ad_channel; if (window.nyt_google_count) { google_skip = nyt_google_count; } // -->

Honors for ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Modern Family’

LOS ANGELES â€" On Sunday, a mere seven days before its very last episode, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” finally earned the outstanding drama Emmy award that it had been denied for years.

As Bryan Cranston, who plays Walter White, the show’s lead character, applauded behind him onstage, the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, said he “did not see this coming.” Mr. Gilligan rattled off the names of the other nominees, including “Mad Men,” the AMC sibling that beat “Breaking Bad” in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and “Homeland,” the Showtime series that beat both of them last year, making sure to mention every competitor. “I thought this was going to be ‘House of Cards,’” he admitted, mentioning the Netflix series that has been credited with ushering in a new age of online television.

But no, it was not Netflix’s night. It was Mr. Gilligan’s, whose show made its debut in 2008 and had been nominated for the top drama prize three times since, but had never won. Mr. Gilligan did not mention the impending finale next Sunday, but he did not have to â€" the award was a free advertisement before an anticipated audience of at least 10 million viewers.

"I’m just so happy for Vince," AMC’s president, Charlie Collier, said as he exited the Nokia Theater.

Until Mr. Gilligan’s acceptance speech at the very end of the Emmys on Sunday, it looked as if “Breaking Bad” might come away almost empty-handed. There were audible gasps of “Whoa!” and “What?” in the auditorium here as Jeff Daniels of HBO’s “The Newsroom” won the annual outstanding actor in a drama award, besting Mr. Cranson, who had won three times before and was widely expected to win again. Mr. Daniels sounded as surprised as anyone when he accepted the award; he had not expected to win.

Neither had Bobby Cannavale, of HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire;” in fact he had not even written an acceptance speech. But he beat two “Breaking Bad” actors, Aaron Paul and Jonathan Banks, in the supporting actor category. “I can’t believe I get to get mentioned with these other really incredible actors,” Mr. Cannavale said.

But “Breaking Bad” did pick up one acting award, for Anna Gunn, who plays Walter White’s wife, Skyler, and was recognized as best supporting actress. (“Bryan Cranston just told me to breathe,” she said as she came on stage.)

To the surprise of many Emmy observers, the two stars of “House of Cards,” Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, came away without awards. The filmmaker David Fincher, who directed the first episode of “Cards,” won an Emmy for best directing, but he was not there to accept it. (A Netflix spokesman said he was filming “Gone Girl.”)

But the wins for “Breaking Bad” might be seen indirectly as wins for Netflix, too: five prior seasons of the AMC series are available on the streaming service. Minutes after “Bad” won the best drama award, the widely followed Netflix Twitter account congratulated the show â€" “All hail (this year’s) king” â€" and reminded subscribers that they could catch up online.

Earlier in the evening, Showtime’s “Homeland,” which last year took home the Emmy for outstanding drama and was nominated again this year, won two awards, one for the actress Claire Danes and another for Henry Bromell, a writer on the series who died of a heart attack in March. Mr. Bromell’s widow, Sarah, accepted his award. Ms. Danes, accepting her award later, paused to acknowledge Mr. Bromell. “We think of him every day as we continue to work on the show that he helped define,” she said.

It was a night of upsets â€" with all-too-numerous remembrances of stars who had passed away in the past year â€" from the very first award, when Merritt Wever won for her supporting actress performance on Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie,” beating three-time winner Julie Bowen of “Modern Family” as well as Ms. Bowen’s co-star Sofia Vergara.

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Honors for ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Modern Family’ .

Collectors of Royalties for Music Publishers May See Better Results

Christopher Polk/Getty Images for TAS

Taylor Swift is among the members of BMI, which collects royalties for music publishers.

The music industry is used to bad news. When the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry announced that record sales in 2012 had their first yearly uptick since 1999, for example, there was jubilation in the record business â€" even though the gain was only 0.3 percent.

One area that has been growing consistently, however, are the royalties from performing rights organizations like Broadcast Music Inc. and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which pay songwriters and music publishers when their music is broadcast, performed live or streamed online.

BMI, as Broadcast Music is known, will announce on Monday that it had $944 million in revenue for the year that ended in June. That is 5 percent more than it collected the year before, and a new high for the organization, whose 600,000 members include stars like Taylor Swift, Pink and Adam Levine of the band Maroon 5. BMI paid $814 million in royalties, the first time its annual distributions have exceeded $800 million. Since 2003, BMI’s revenue has increased about 50 percent.

The performing rights societies are some of the industry’s oldest financial engines, and they are trying to adapt to a digitized business that has spread far beyond radio and broadcast television, their bread and butter for decades.

BMI, which was founded in 1939, collected $57 million in its most recent year from digital services, which include not only Pandora and Spotify but also Hulu, Netflix and other online outlets. As recently as 2009, such services represented just 2 percent of BMI’s domestic revenue, but in its latest fiscal year they were 9 percent.

BMI’s “general licensing” category, which includes live performances as well as the music played in restaurants and other businesses, brought in $116 million, and $297 million more came from international sources. Michael O’Neill, who took over as BMI’s chief executive this month, said the organization had become leaner through staff reductions and by building a more efficient digital infrastructure to track billions of performances of its songs.

Founded in 1914, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or Ascap, reported in March that it had $942 million in revenue for 2012, down 4.2 percent. For the year that ended in June 2012, BMI’s revenue also fell by about 3.5 percent, to $899 million. In those periods, both organizations â€" which are nonprofits regulated by federal consent decrees â€" were hit by a royalty renegotiation with radio broadcasters.

Even as the performing rights organizations have tried to adapt and streamline their operations for the digital age, their future has been cast into doubt. In recent years, some of biggest publishers have withdrawn digital rights to their catalogs from the performing rights organizations, in an effort to control the royalty rates paid by online services like Pandora.

But last week, a federal judge in a case between Ascap and Pandora ruled that publishers could not keep some rights within Ascap but withhold others. That decision did not directly affect BMI. But it raised concerns that the societies â€" already threatened by the trend of rights withdrawal by publishers â€" could be in even greater danger if they are seen as standing in the way of publishers getting the highest rates they can.

“This was the year we were declared dead by some,” said Richard Conlon, a senior vice president at BMI, “and we just hit a 74-year high in revenue.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Collectors of Royalties For Music Publishers May See Better Results .

Collectors of Royalties for Music Publishers May See Better Results

Christopher Polk/Getty Images for TAS

Taylor Swift is among the members of BMI, which collects royalties for music publishers.

The music industry is used to bad news. When the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry announced that record sales in 2012 had their first yearly uptick since 1999, for example, there was jubilation in the record business â€" even though the gain was only 0.3 percent.

One area that has been growing consistently, however, are the royalties from performing rights organizations like Broadcast Music Inc. and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which pay songwriters and music publishers when their music is broadcast, performed live or streamed online.

BMI, as Broadcast Music is known, will announce on Monday that it had $944 million in revenue for the year that ended in June. That is 5 percent more than it collected the year before, and a new high for the organization, whose 600,000 members include stars like Taylor Swift, Pink and Adam Levine of the band Maroon 5. BMI paid $814 million in royalties, the first time its annual distributions have exceeded $800 million. Since 2003, BMI’s revenue has increased about 50 percent.

The performing rights societies are some of the industry’s oldest financial engines, and they are trying to adapt to a digitized business that has spread far beyond radio and broadcast television, their bread and butter for decades.

BMI, which was founded in 1939, collected $57 million in its most recent year from digital services, which include not only Pandora and Spotify but also Hulu, Netflix and other online outlets. As recently as 2009, such services represented just 2 percent of BMI’s domestic revenue, but in its latest fiscal year they were 9 percent.

BMI’s “general licensing” category, which includes live performances as well as the music played in restaurants and other businesses, brought in $116 million, and $297 million more came from international sources. Michael O’Neill, who took over as BMI’s chief executive this month, said the organization had become leaner through staff reductions and by building a more efficient digital infrastructure to track billions of performances of its songs.

Founded in 1914, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or Ascap, reported in March that it had $942 million in revenue for 2012, down 4.2 percent. For the year that ended in June 2012, BMI’s revenue also fell by about 3.5 percent, to $899 million. In those periods, both organizations â€" which are nonprofits regulated by federal consent decrees â€" were hit by a royalty renegotiation with radio broadcasters.

Even as the performing rights organizations have tried to adapt and streamline their operations for the digital age, their future has been cast into doubt. In recent years, some of biggest publishers have withdrawn digital rights to their catalogs from the performing rights organizations, in an effort to control the royalty rates paid by online services like Pandora.

But last week, a federal judge in a case between Ascap and Pandora ruled that publishers could not keep some rights within Ascap but withhold others. That decision did not directly affect BMI. But it raised concerns that the societies â€" already threatened by the trend of rights withdrawal by publishers â€" could be in even greater danger if they are seen as standing in the way of publishers getting the highest rates they can.

“This was the year we were declared dead by some,” said Richard Conlon, a senior vice president at BMI, “and we just hit a 74-year high in revenue.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Collectors of Royalties For Music Publishers May See Better Results .

Chinese Titan Takes Aim at Hollywood

Jason Lee/Reuters

The actress Kate Beckinsale met fans on Sunday at an event in the coastal city of Qingdao to promote a movie theme park planned by Wang Jianlin.

HONG KONG â€" Los Angeles has film studios and the best-known movie industry award ceremonies. Orlando has amusement parks and resort hotels. Now, one of China’s richest men wants to copy them with a movie-themed real estate development in his country’s most fashionable beach city.

Wang Jianlin, the chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group.

Wang Jianlin, who is chairman of Dalian Wanda Group and reputed to be China’s wealthiest investor, announced plans on Sunday for the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis. Costing from $4.9 billion to $8.2 billion, it would encompass film studios, resort hotels, an indoor amusement park, movie theaters with up to 3,000 seats and even a hospital.

Stars like Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, Leonardo DiCaprio and Zhang Ziyi, among others, showed up on Sunday at a ceremony in Qingdao for the development, which Mr. Wang billed as a sign of China’s effort to become the world leader in yet another industry: filmmaking.

Dalian Wanda purchased AMC Entertainment for $2.6 billion in a deal last year that signaled China’s biggest splash yet in the American movie market.

“It is estimated that China’s film box office revenue will surpass North America’s by 2018 and will double it by 2023 â€" that is why I believe the future of the world’s film industry is in China,” Mr. Wang said, according to a text of his remarks.

Dalian Wanda will build a series of movie sound sets, and has reached preliminary agreements with four of the biggest Hollywood movie agent businesses to help negotiate contracts with actors and actresses for the production of 30 foreign movies a year, Mr. Wang said. It is also planning deals with 50 domestic companies for the production of 100 films and television shows a year.

Chinese officials were quick to extol the Qingdao project. “Whether in terms of investment, scale or grade, Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis is an unprecedented project that will create history as it represents the highest level and the future of the development” of China’s film industry, said Li Qiankuan, the chairman of the government-controlled China Film Association.

Mr. Wang also announced plans to host an annual film festival in Qingdao every September, starting in 2016. The festival would include an elaborate awards ceremony.

But the moviemaking aspects of Sunday’s plans appeared to be dwarfed by the real estate project surrounding it. Mr. Wang, who made an estimated $14 billion fortune as a real estate developer, said that he planned to build eight resort hotels, an enormous shopping mall, a 300-berth yacht club, numerous apartment towers, a seaside restaurant row and even a celebrity wax museum â€" in addition to 20 movie sound sets and the amusement park.

Famed for its gentle coastal climate and located between Beijing and Shanghai, Qingdao has some of the costliest real estate in China. But as it is everywhere in China, all land is owned by the government, and the support of local officials is needed to obtain land at low cost and get permission to build on it.

In a city where even the smallest plots have set off bidding wars, Mr. Wang’s vision seems to have captured the hearts of local leaders. Mr. Wang said that the project would cover 929 acres in a new development on the city’s outskirts. The plan calls for constructing 58 million square feet of buildings on the site, the equivalent of 21 and a half Empire State Buildings.

Qingdao’s top Communist Party and municipal government officials attended Mr. Wang’s ceremony but did not release financial details for the land.

Until a few years ago, the best way to obtain a large plot of urban land cheaply was to agree to build an auto assembly plant. That has contributed to the development of more than 100 auto companies in China, many producing tiny numbers of cars.

Even the largest automakers in China, like Geely Group, tend to have Balkanized manufacturing networks, having set up many small assembly plants on large urban sites in cities scattered all over the country instead of just a few, high-output operations.

In the last five years, local governments changed tack at the direction of Beijing and began offering nearly free land either downtown or in inner suburbs to renewable energy companies. That has helped produce a huge surge in the production of solar panels and wind turbines, as China has become by far the largest manufacturer of both.

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinese Titan Takes Aim At Hollywood .

News From the Advertising Industry

Accounts

â–  Guaranteed Rate, Chicago, a residential mortgage company, named Olson, Minneapolis, its first agency of record. Billings were not disclosed.

■ Subway Restaurants, Milford, Conn., chose 360i, New York, part of Dentsu, as its social media agency of record. Billings were not disclosed. The assignment previously was handled by the Zócalo Group, Chicago, part of the Ketchum division of the Omnicom Group.

â–  Air Canada named JWT Canada, Toronto, part of the JWT unit of WPP, its creative advertising agency of record. Spending was estimated at $2.6 million. The assignment was handled for the last 27 years by Marketel, Montreal. The media planning and buying part of the account will be handled by a JWT Canada sibling, Mindshare Canada, part of the Mindshare unit of GroupM, also owned by WPP.

■ Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Philadelphia, selected Glu, New York, as advertising agency of record. The organization previously worked with the Advertising Council and Publicis Modem, part of the Publicis Groupe, for a national public service campaign in 2011 that carried the theme “Start something.” Glu plans to work with consumer brands to create paid cause-marketing ads for the organization in traditional and digital media.

People

â–  Andy Brown, chairman at Kantar Media, London, part of the Kantar division of WPP, is adding the post of chief executive, assuming those duties from Jean-Michel Portier, who retired this year.

â–  Kerry Keenan joined Deutsch New York as partner and chief creative officer, succeeding Greg DiNoto, who is leaving, the agency said. Ms. Keenan most recently ran, with Nathy Aviram, a company, Half Irish, that specializes in branded content; before that, she was global executive creative director at Y&R, as well as executive producer and principal at Y&R Entertainment, both units of the Young & Rubicam Group division of WPP. Deutsch New York is part of the Deutsch division of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

â–  Jason Prohaska joined Your Majesty New York, part of Your Majesty, as chief executive, a new post. He had been general manager and managing director at Big Spaceship, Brooklyn.

â–  Richard Kosinski joined Unruly, New York, as United States president, succeeding Art Zeidman, who left to join Pixability as executive vice president for sales and chief revenue officer. Mr. Kosinski most recently was senior vice president for sales at Quantcast.

â–  Rodd Chant joined Bannistar as executive creative director, overseeing the creative output and creative staff members at the offices in Singapore and Tokyo, as well as working with agency executives on plans to open a satellite office in New York. Mr. Chant, who most recently ran his own creative consultancy, will be primarily based in Singapore but will also spend time in New York.

â–  Sean Rosenberg joined Code Worldwide, New York, part of the Diversified Agency Services division of the Omnicom Group, as global head of mobile, a new post. He most recently was senior vice president for business development at Indaba Music.

■ Michael Kantrow and Tom Ajello, founding partners of Poke New York, part of Poke, London, completed a management buyout of Poke New York, which they renamed Makeable. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal came as Poke, a digital agency, was acquired by the Publicis Groupe, Paris, becoming a part of the Publicis Groupe’s operations in Britain. Mother Holdings, which had been a minority investor in Poke New York, is also a minority investor in Makeable.

â–  Mary Baglivo joined her alma mater, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., in a new post, as vice president for global marketing and chief marketing officer. She most recently was chairwoman and chief executive for Latin America and multicultural at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, part of the Publicis Groupe.

â–  Marlene Sanchez Dooner, senior vice president for investor relations at the Comcast Corporation, was named to a new post at the NBCUniversal unit of Comcast, executive vice president for Hispanic enterprises and content, reporting to Joe Uva, chairman for Hispanic enterprises and content, which include Telemundo and Mun2.

Miscellany

■ Federal Trade Commission, Washington, plans to offer a workshop on Dec. 4 devoted to the subject of native advertising, also known as sponsored content and content marketing. The workshop, the commission’s first on the subject, will explore whether native ads blur the line between editorial content and advertising to the point where consumers are confused or misled. In a statement, the commission said its examination of native ads was in keeping with its scrutiny over several decades of how clear the distinction between content and advertising is to consumers. It cited challenges to deceptive practices like Web sites that pretend to be news sites and infomercials that are styled like television programs.

â–  Straightline, New York, a brand consultancy, opened an office in London. As Michael Watras, chief executive, divides his time between clients at both offices, Andrea Cotter, managing director of the agency, becomes president.

â–  Van Winkle & Associates, Atlanta, was renamed Van Winkle & Pearce after Bobby Pearce, who joined the agency last year, became a co-owner with Alex Van Winkle.

â–  “Inspired,” a commercial for the Canon Eos Rebel T4i camera, won the 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial at the 65th annual Creative Arts Emmys. The spot was created by Grey New York â€" part of the Grey division of the Grey Group, owned by WPP â€" and directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ.

â–  CKSK, Dublin, expanded to the United States by opening an office in New York, to be called CKSK USA. The agency also has an office in Amsterdam. CKSK USA will work for clients that include Heineken USA and Pernod Ricard.

â–  Neverstop, New York and Seattle, was acquired by the CHR Group, New York, a marketing services agency holding group. Financial terms were not disclosed. Nasir Rasheed, president and chief cultural engineer at Neverstop, becomes a shareholder in CHR and will join the board; Neverstop will operate as an autonomous brand within CHR.

■ The Station, New York, a post-production and content production company, started a division called The Writer’s Room, offering advertisers and agencies a roster of writers with backgrounds in movies, television and sketch comedy.

â–  Talent Partners, New York, which provides production and talent support services for agencies and marketers, opened Talent Partners Canada, Toronto, through a merger with Canadian Connection. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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News From the Advertising Industry

Accounts

â–  Guaranteed Rate, Chicago, a residential mortgage company, named Olson, Minneapolis, its first agency of record. Billings were not disclosed.

■ Subway Restaurants, Milford, Conn., chose 360i, New York, part of Dentsu, as its social media agency of record. Billings were not disclosed. The assignment previously was handled by the Zócalo Group, Chicago, part of the Ketchum division of the Omnicom Group.

â–  Air Canada named JWT Canada, Toronto, part of the JWT unit of WPP, its creative advertising agency of record. Spending was estimated at $2.6 million. The assignment was handled for the last 27 years by Marketel, Montreal. The media planning and buying part of the account will be handled by a JWT Canada sibling, Mindshare Canada, part of the Mindshare unit of GroupM, also owned by WPP.

■ Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Philadelphia, selected Glu, New York, as advertising agency of record. The organization previously worked with the Advertising Council and Publicis Modem, part of the Publicis Groupe, for a national public service campaign in 2011 that carried the theme “Start something.” Glu plans to work with consumer brands to create paid cause-marketing ads for the organization in traditional and digital media.

People

â–  Andy Brown, chairman at Kantar Media, London, part of the Kantar division of WPP, is adding the post of chief executive, assuming those duties from Jean-Michel Portier, who retired this year.

â–  Kerry Keenan joined Deutsch New York as partner and chief creative officer, succeeding Greg DiNoto, who is leaving, the agency said. Ms. Keenan most recently ran, with Nathy Aviram, a company, Half Irish, that specializes in branded content; before that, she was global executive creative director at Y&R, as well as executive producer and principal at Y&R Entertainment, both units of the Young & Rubicam Group division of WPP. Deutsch New York is part of the Deutsch division of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

â–  Jason Prohaska joined Your Majesty New York, part of Your Majesty, as chief executive, a new post. He had been general manager and managing director at Big Spaceship, Brooklyn.

â–  Richard Kosinski joined Unruly, New York, as United States president, succeeding Art Zeidman, who left to join Pixability as executive vice president for sales and chief revenue officer. Mr. Kosinski most recently was senior vice president for sales at Quantcast.

â–  Rodd Chant joined Bannistar as executive creative director, overseeing the creative output and creative staff members at the offices in Singapore and Tokyo, as well as working with agency executives on plans to open a satellite office in New York. Mr. Chant, who most recently ran his own creative consultancy, will be primarily based in Singapore but will also spend time in New York.

â–  Sean Rosenberg joined Code Worldwide, New York, part of the Diversified Agency Services division of the Omnicom Group, as global head of mobile, a new post. He most recently was senior vice president for business development at Indaba Music.

■ Michael Kantrow and Tom Ajello, founding partners of Poke New York, part of Poke, London, completed a management buyout of Poke New York, which they renamed Makeable. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal came as Poke, a digital agency, was acquired by the Publicis Groupe, Paris, becoming a part of the Publicis Groupe’s operations in Britain. Mother Holdings, which had been a minority investor in Poke New York, is also a minority investor in Makeable.

â–  Mary Baglivo joined her alma mater, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., in a new post, as vice president for global marketing and chief marketing officer. She most recently was chairwoman and chief executive for Latin America and multicultural at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, part of the Publicis Groupe.

â–  Marlene Sanchez Dooner, senior vice president for investor relations at the Comcast Corporation, was named to a new post at the NBCUniversal unit of Comcast, executive vice president for Hispanic enterprises and content, reporting to Joe Uva, chairman for Hispanic enterprises and content, which include Telemundo and Mun2.

Miscellany

■ Federal Trade Commission, Washington, plans to offer a workshop on Dec. 4 devoted to the subject of native advertising, also known as sponsored content and content marketing. The workshop, the commission’s first on the subject, will explore whether native ads blur the line between editorial content and advertising to the point where consumers are confused or misled. In a statement, the commission said its examination of native ads was in keeping with its scrutiny over several decades of how clear the distinction between content and advertising is to consumers. It cited challenges to deceptive practices like Web sites that pretend to be news sites and infomercials that are styled like television programs.

â–  Straightline, New York, a brand consultancy, opened an office in London. As Michael Watras, chief executive, divides his time between clients at both offices, Andrea Cotter, managing director of the agency, becomes president.

â–  Van Winkle & Associates, Atlanta, was renamed Van Winkle & Pearce after Bobby Pearce, who joined the agency last year, became a co-owner with Alex Van Winkle.

â–  “Inspired,” a commercial for the Canon Eos Rebel T4i camera, won the 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial at the 65th annual Creative Arts Emmys. The spot was created by Grey New York â€" part of the Grey division of the Grey Group, owned by WPP â€" and directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ.

â–  CKSK, Dublin, expanded to the United States by opening an office in New York, to be called CKSK USA. The agency also has an office in Amsterdam. CKSK USA will work for clients that include Heineken USA and Pernod Ricard.

â–  Neverstop, New York and Seattle, was acquired by the CHR Group, New York, a marketing services agency holding group. Financial terms were not disclosed. Nasir Rasheed, president and chief cultural engineer at Neverstop, becomes a shareholder in CHR and will join the board; Neverstop will operate as an autonomous brand within CHR.

■ The Station, New York, a post-production and content production company, started a division called The Writer’s Room, offering advertisers and agencies a roster of writers with backgrounds in movies, television and sketch comedy.

â–  Talent Partners, New York, which provides production and talent support services for agencies and marketers, opened Talent Partners Canada, Toronto, through a merger with Canadian Connection. Financial terms were not disclosed.

An Escape From Slavery, Now a Movie, Has Long Intrigued Historians

Jaap Buitendijk/Fox Searchlight Pictures

Benedict Cumberbatch, left, as William Ford, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, in the coming film “12 Years a Slave.”

LOS ANGELES â€" In the age of “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” questions about the accuracy of nonfiction films have become routine. With “12 Years a Slave,” based on a memoir published 160 years ago, the answers are anything but routine.

Written by John Ridley and directed by Steve McQueen, “12 Years a Slave,” a leading contender for honors during the coming movie awards season, tells a story that was summarized in the 33-word title of its underlying material.

Published by Derby & Miller in 1853, the book was called: “Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, From a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River, in Louisiana.”

The real Solomon Northup â€" and years of scholarly research attest to his reality â€" fought an unsuccessful legal battle against his abductors. But he enjoyed a lasting triumph that began with the sale of some 30,000 copies of his book when it first appeared, and continued with its republication in 1968 by the historian Sue Eakin.

Speaking on Friday, Mr. Ridley said he decided simply to “stick with the facts” in adapting Northup’s book for the film, which is set for release on Oct. 18 by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Mr. Ridley said he was helped by voluminous footnotes and documentation that were included with Ms. Eakin’s edition of the book.

For decades, however, scholars have been trying to untangle the literal truth of Mr. Northup’s account from the conventions of the antislavery literary genre.

The difficulties are detailed in “The Slave’s Narrative,” a compilation of essays that was published by the Oxford University Press in 1985, and edited by Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Mr. Gates is now credited as a consultant to the film, and he edited a recent edition of “Twelve Years a Slave.”)

“When the abolitionists invited an ex-slave to tell his story of experience in slavery to an antislavery convention, and when they subsequently sponsored the appearance of that story in print, they had certain clear expectations, well understood by themselves and well understood by the ex-slave, too,” wrote one scholar, James Olney.

Mr. Olney was explaining pressures that created a certain uniformity of content in the popular slave narratives, with recurring themes that involved insistence on sometimes questioned personal identity, harrowing descriptions of oppression, and open advocacy for the abolitionist cause.

In his essay, called “I Was Born: Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature,” Mr. Olney contended that Solomon Northup’s real voice was usurped by David Wilson, the white “amanuensis” to whom he dictated his tale, and who gave the book a preface in the same florid style that informs the memoir.

“We may think it pretty fine writing and awfully literary, but the fine writer is clearly David Wilson rather than Solomon Northup,” Mr. Olney wrote.

In another essay from the 1985 collection, titled “I Rose and Found My Voice: Narration, Authentication, and Authorial Control in Four Slave Narratives,” Robert Burns Stepto, a professor at Yale, detected textual evidence â€" assurances, disclaimers and such â€" that Solomon Northup expected some to doubt his story.

“Clearly, Northup felt that the authenticity of his tale would not be taken for granted, and that, on a certain peculiar but familiar level enforced by rituals along the color line, his narrative would be viewed as a fiction competing with other fictions,” wrote Mr. Stepto.

Mr. Stepto did not question Mr. Northup’s veracity; but he spotted one prominent example of a story point that conformed neatly to expectations. Mr. Northup’s account of being saved with the help of a Canadian named Samuel Bass (played in the film by Brad Pitt), wrote Mr. Stepto, “represents a variation on the archetype of deliverance in Canada.”

In an interview by phone on Friday, David A. Fiske â€" who recently joined Clifford W. Brown Jr. and Rachel Seligman in writing “Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave” â€" said he believed he had now identified an Ontario-born man as the actual Samuel Bass to whom Northup referred.

Mr. Fiske, who did some paid research for the film, said that overall he had high confidence in the accuracy of Northup’s account. “He had a literalist approach to recording events,” he said.

Both Mr. Olney and Mr. Stepto had a further reservation, however. Each noted that a dedication page added to “Twelve Years a Slave” â€" which devoted the book to Harriet Beecher Stowe, and called it “another key” to her novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” â€" helped blur the line between literal and literary truth.

“The dedication, like the pervasive style, calls into serious question the status of ‘Twelve Years a Slave’ as autobiography and/or literature,” Mr. Olney wrote.

Still, Mr. Ridley said the heavily documented story, with its many twists and turns, had an unpredictability that is a hallmark of the real.

“Life happens, it’s a lot stranger than the false beats that occur when people try to jam a narrative” into an expected framework, he said.

The Media Equation: Wintour’s Reign Extends Beyond Vogue

Wintour’s Reign Extends Beyond Vogue

Peter Foley/European Pressphoto Agency

Anna Wintour of Vogue is also Condé Nast’s artistic director.

Anna Wintour created a bit of an international incident in 2010, when she cut short her visit to Milan Fashion Week. Designers scrambled, fashion journalists pondered its deeper meaning and local officials took grave offense.

Ms. Wintour of Vogue, Jonathan Newhouse of Condé Nast International and Franca Sozzani of Italian Vogue.

But this year, Ms. Wintour, the editor of Vogue â€" a fashion fetish object and business juggernaut â€" gave Milan a hug. On Wednesday night, she held a party at La Scala, the famed opera house â€" hosting an Italian cousin to the extravagant Met gala, which she is also in charge of back in the United States. Joining her to let Milan know it still mattered was Jonathan Newhouse, the chairman of Condé Nast International and one of the heirs to the family company, Advance Publications, which owns Condé Nast.

Charles Townsend, the chief executive of Condé Nast, was there as well. Oh, and so was David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker; Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair; Stefano Tonchi, the editor of W; and Jim Nelson, the editor of GQ. Editors from Glamour, Allure, Bon Appétit, Teen Vogue, Lucky and Style.com also came.

Given the belt-tightening libretto of the magazine industry, the fete was an awesome display of her powers, both in fashion at large and, more to the point, at Condé Nast.

Ms. Wintour has always been a big deal â€" fashion houses seek her favor, retailers her advice and politicians her attention â€" but her influence within Condé Nast is now on the march in ways that are not just reshaping the magazines but the editorial structure within the organization. Five high-ranking newsroom employees told me that the new order is both not up for discussion â€" no one at the company wants to risk offending Ms. Wintour â€" and all anyone is talking about. They worry that the Condé way is becoming the Wintour way, leaving some in the organization feeling endangered.

The editor of Vogue since 1988, Ms. Wintour, a 63-year-old London native, was named artistic director of Condé Nast in March. The role gives her permission to roam over other magazines in the building, especially ones that are viewed as troubled or dated. She is a kind of in-house consultant thought to have the wizard’s touch and her advice can either be sought, or delivered.

Her appointment makes it clear that the people who run the company are not content to let its more challenged publications drift into unprofitability. Ms. Wintour’s obvious skills, relationships with advertisers and success made her the best candidate to help stem the slide.

And it’s not as if she lacks other options. A friend of President Obama and a reliable fund-raiser for him, she was reportedly under consideration for an ambassadorship, a possibility that sent shivers through the executive corridors of Condé Nast. Mr. Townsend said frankly when he made the appointment: “I would go to great distances to avoid losing Anna, particularly in the prime of her career.”

When I called him, he was just as frank about another reason for her appointment. Ms. Wintour is filling the hole left by S. I. Newhouse Jr., who at 85 still comes to work regularly and but is far less involved in the operation. “Condé Nast has always had an extraordinary creative leader, someone who wields influence in publishing, media and business,” he said. “It is her moment right now. Anna is the biggest talent we have, maybe the biggest in the business, and I am going to play that card for all it’s worth.”

While Ms. Wintour has kept a respectable distance from Mr. Remnick and Mr. Carter, the other members of the company’s power troika, she has landed hard on magazines that are seen as business laggards.

In August, Klara Glowczewska, the editor of Condé Nast Traveler who had been with the magazine since its inception in 1987, was moved out, replaced by Pilar Guzmán. Ms. Wintour was deeply involved in the switch and remains deeply involved in the magazine.

Lucky also underwent a makeover. A shopping magazine built on the fashion sensibilities of younger women, it has struggled for years, and Brandon Holley, a well-regarded digital and publishing executive, was hired in 2010 to help right the once-flourishing magazine. But while Lucky’s Web site did well, newsstand sales â€" a measure of reader interest â€" were off more than 21 percent in the year ending in June 2013.

Ms. Holley found herself, in effect, replaced in place, when Eva Chen, a Wintour favorite who had worked at Teen Vogue, was brought in to consult. All pages of the magazine were run past Ms. Wintour, and she began to both handpick the fashions and the photographers for the magazine. After a couple of untenable months, Ms. Holley was fired in June, replaced by Ms. Chen.

Since Ms. Wintour has become de facto editor of Lucky, the magazine has become Vogue-ified. Women not shaped like supermodels, once a staple of Lucky’s pages, are now banished. The cover of the October issue, shot by the Vogue stalwart Patrick Demarchelier, features Eva Mendes, a remarkable-looking person who has very little in common with the girl next door

Now Ms. Wintour is turning her attention to Glamour, which has lost over 28 percent of its newsstand sales in the year ending in June, and perhaps other magazines as well. According to a magazine executive at a competing company with direct knowledge of the discussions, a creative director at his company was approached about working in a similar role for Glamour, and told that the post would report to Ms. Wintour, not Cindi Leive, the magazine’s editor. (Mr. Townsend acknowledged the discussions, but said the reporting line detail was “dead wrong.”)

E-mail: carr@nytimes.com;

Twitter: @carr2n

Advertising: Small Fry Feed Off Merger of Big Fish

Small Fry Feed Off Merger of Big Fish

SOME people love collecting sayings that seemingly contradict each other, like “Many hands make light work” versus “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” In the advertising business, those who believe that “Bigger is better” find themselves at odds with those who believe that “Small is beautiful.”

In a recruitment ad, Brokaw, a Cleveland agency, lightheartedly extolled the cost of living advantages of smaller cities.

The debate has been intensifying as the bigger on Madison Avenue get bigger â€" most notably the planned merger, announced in July, of the Omnicom Group and the Publicis Groupe to form what would be the world’s largest agency holding group.

There is sure to be considerable discussion of the merger this week, during the Advertising Week 2013 conference in New York.

In the vein of another saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” smaller, independent agencies are using the formation of what is to be known as the Publicis Omnicom Group as a catalyst for initiatives to promote themselves to potential clients and would-be employees.

The smaller fry are extolling what they consider to be the benefits of being small, like nimbleness, and the drawbacks of being big, like high overhead.

Or as Tim Brokaw, who with his brother, Gregg, owns Brokaw, an agency in Cleveland with 54 employees, put it, “Small is the new big.”

Brokaw was completing work on a humorous employee recruitment campaign when “news came through of the merger,” Mr. Brokaw said, and it has served as additional grist for the campaign’s mill.

“We heard from some refugees” of agencies owned by Omnicom and Publicis, he added, among the more than 200 résumés his company has received since the campaign began.

Employing the theme “It’s time to take your talents to Cleveland,” the campaign includes online ads geographically targeted to marketing professionals in the Chicago and New York areas on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the AgencySpy blog.

The ads offer prospective employees tongue-in-cheek contrasts between working in bigger and smaller markets. One ad depicts a mansion, declaring, “What you can afford on a media coordinator salary.” Another ad suggests how comfortable it could be to work in Cleveland, if not sartorially correct: “Trade in those skinny jeans for some jorts.”

Although the self-deprecating humor of the campaign may appeal to those outside Cleveland, some eyebrows are rising in the home market.

“They’re about to set our building on fire,” Mr. Brokaw joked about the reaction of critics who are, he said, “not the target audience; it was never meant to be a tourism campaign.”

An initiative from Copacino & Fujikado, an independent agency in Seattle with 35 employees, took a similarly cheeky tack. A billboard that the agency had erected near the Space Needle offered “Congrats to Publicis and Omnicom” and portrayed them as gigantic creatures resembling Godzilla and King Kong, shaking hands (or paws).

“It started with us winning the small agency of the year award for the Northwest region from Advertising Age,” said Mike Hayward, creative director at Copacino & Fujikado, adding: “Do you do a news release and put it on your Web site? That’s the standard way to do it.”

Rather, the agency decided “to show people who we are by showing them who we aren’t,” Mr. Hayward said. “Juxtaposing us against the two giants shows how we think and what we do.”

That was underlined by the fact it took only “three or four days from the time we came up with the idea to the time the billboard went up,” he added, as well as the small price tag, about $2,900.

The response has exceeded what executives at Copacino & Fujikado expected. “We had a company from Beijing contact us to work with them,” said Brandy O’Briant, managing director, and potential employees have been reaching out.

Ames Scullin O’Haire, a small, independent agency in Atlanta, is producing a three-part Web series, through its ASO Digital Films division, that mocks the Omnicom-Publicis merger. In the initial video clip, a smarmy account executive at a newly merged goliath named UniGlobalAdvertCom briefs a client on benefits that include an office in Antarctica.

The dubious client keeps asking, to no satisfaction, “What does that mean for me?” The clip ends with the words “Bigger isn’t always better” on screen.

“With Publicis and Omnicom coming together, independent agencies like ourselves are going to be the Davids going up against these Goliaths,” said Patrick Scullin, executive creative director at Ames Scullin O’Haire, which has 55 employees. “I’ve yet to see a ‘process’ result in a better idea.”

The first part of the online series has generated “a big increase in traffic to our Web site,” he added; Part 2 is to be released on Tuesday and Part 3 in two or three weeks.

Although “we’ve heard a lot of buzz in the agency community” about the video clip, Mr. Scullin said, “we haven’t heard anything from Maurice Lévy or John Wren.” Mr. Lévy is the chief executive of Publicis and Mr. Wren is his counterpart at Omnicom.

What do those chiefs think about the pokes from the smaller agencies? A spokeswoman at Omnicom in New York declined to comment; a spokeswoman at Publicis in Paris did not respond to an e-mail.

Martin Sorrell, chief executive of what is now the world’s largest agency holding group, WPP in London, which will remain No. 1 until the deal is completed, offered a reaction.

“Humor is one way of expressing” opinions about the merger, Mr. Sorrell said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

China’s Richest Man to Build $8 Billion Film Park

QINGDAO, China â€" China's richest man, property developer Wang Jianlin, raised the curtain on a planned 50 billion yuan ($8.17 billion) "motion-picture city" which he described as the biggest-ever single investment in the movie and television industry.

Property developer Wang Jianlin, 58, founder of Dalian Wanda Group, was surrounded by Hollywood stars John Travolta, Nicole Kidman and Catherine Zeta-Jones on Sunday as he launched his most ambitious project yet in the picturesque coastal city of Qingdao.

When completed in 2017, the Oriental Movie Metropolis will boast 20 sound stages, including the world's first underwater studio, a massive convention and exhibition complex, a sprawling shopping mall with an indoor amusement park and seven resort hotels.

The project also will include a yacht club with 300 berths.

"The Oriental Movie Metropolis is a major step in China's strategy to become a global cultural powerhouse," Wang said.

It was not only crucial to the development of Wanda's entertainment business, he added, but also an important step for building China's cultural brand.

For Wang, who was named by Forbes as China's richest man with personal wealth of $14 billion, the Qingdao project also represents the latest move by Wanda Group to parlay its real estate and shopping mall development into a leisure and entertainment empire.

Wanda Group, which is privately held, has invested in 72 Wanda Plazas across China, along with 40 five-star hotels. The company also owns 6,000 movie screens, 62 department stores and 68 karaoke centers.

More recently, the company has turned to offshore markets to expand its real estate and leisure investment. Last year, Wanda closed its $2.6 billion buy-out of U.S. cinema chain AMC Entertainment. Wang this year also announced a 1 billion pound ($1.57 billion) British investment that included the purchase of Sunseeker, Britain's largest luxury yacht maker by sales.

The Wanda chairman told Reuters earlier this month that he could afford to spend as much as $5 billion every year to buy foreign firms or assets.

In an interview on the sidelines of Sunday's ceremony, Wang said that he expected Wanda Group revenue to increase to $30 billion this year, and to continue to increase by $10 billion every year.

Wanda Group says it has total assets of 300 billion yuan ($49.01 billion) and annual revenue for 2012 of 141.7 billion yuan ($23.15 billion).

"We will have more than $50 billion in revenue two years from now," he said. "In 2020, we will have at least $100 billion, even by conservative estimates."

Offshore hotel investment is a major focus of the company's strategy. "In the next eight to ten years, we will build high-end hotels in major cities around the world," he said.

To reach the site of Oriental Movie Metropolis, which is planned as a 376-hectare, eight-phase development, it's necessary to drive about one hour from downtown Qingdao past rows of upscale apartment complexes that appear partially occupied.

Wang, who started his own film production company in recent months that has met with mixed success, explained that movies were a "sunrise industry" in China. He expects Wanda to be among the world's leading 20 entertainment companies by 2016.

He declined to discuss financing for the new project, although he has not ruled out the use of partners or of debt.

($1 = 6.12 yuan)

(Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee in Qingdao and Matthew Miller in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie)